Can I keep it?
by ravenshell
Summary: It's just a cute little beetle. It'd be a great pet. Until it starts shaking things up...


"I can keep it, can't I, Leo?" Mikey insisted, cuddling the fist-sized beetle, which buzzed its wings together. "If I can take care of Klunk all right, a little beetle should be no problem!"

"You're not keepin' it!" Raph demanded. "I'm not havin' that thing crawlin' across my face in the middle of the night!"

Mikey turned his beak up at his brother. "You're just saying that 'cause you're scared of bugs!"

"I told ya already, I ain't afraid a' bugs. Just don't like 'em." He crossed his arms stubbornly, but raised them high in a defensive warding-off manner when Michelangelo shoved the large insect in his face, ready to swat it away if necessary. It buzzed again, and Mikey's hand whisked it away as Raph's came down at it.

"Uh-huh," the orange-banded turtle said with obvious skepticism, petting the bug in a reassuring way. "It's okay, Buzzy… the big bad Raphie won't hurt you… Let's just get you home, and…"

"Actually, I wouldn't advise it," his brainy brother put in. "This is a jinshin-mushi, an earthquake beetle."

"This little thing can cause an earthquake?" Leo asked, also looking down at the black-and-orange-shelled beetle in his brother's hand as it squalled again.

"Not on its own," Donatello began to inform them. "But the sonic waves they emit as a group can cause collapses of caves like this one… and if one… calls the rest…" He paused, hearing answering buzzing from various points around them in the gloom.

Michelangelo's 'pet' chirred again, and, looking disturbed, he set it down on the ground. "I just remembered that scene with the scarabs in 'The Mummy'… They don't eat flesh, do they, Don?"

"N-no, they're purely vegetarian," Donnie replied, nervously glancing around at the gathering number of beetles, all starting to burr around them. "But we may want to get out of here! They collapse enclosed spaces so they can reclaim them for themselves!"

"Everyone, move!" Leo directed, pointing his brothers deeper into the cave as the roof started raining bits of rubble on them.

"'Let's go spelunking while we're in Japan,' you said," Raph chastised as he ran, shielding his head with his hands. "'It'll be fun,' you said."

Leonardo only grimaced, now clearly regretting his choice of adventure as part of the wall came down after them, blocking them into this part of the cave.

"Why do these little guys need huge caverns for themselves, though? I mean, even if they're kind of big ladybugs, they're tiny! Even hundreds of them wouldn't need that much room!" Mikey asked, and then ran into what seemed like a pillar that had been placed in his way. He took in its shiny black appearance, with the occasional jutting giant hair along its towering length as he looked up… and up… and up…

A giant head, tipped with a sharp, silver bill at the end and adorned with a horn like a rhinoceros beetle's on top, bowed down to eye him. Plated scales covered its sides beneath huge wings, tucked beneath its gigantic carapace. The dragonlike face opened its giant mandibles and shrieked at the orange-masked turtle, who immediately shrieked back as the pillar-like leg moved to skewer him.

"Oh, that'd be their queen," Don called out detachedly.

The kaiju-sized insect lifted its carapace and started sawing its wings together, causing an immensely loud bass rumble that brought more boulders from the ceiling raining down at them. The ninjas had to shield their ears against the sonic onslaught. In an attempt to stop or at least distract the creature, Leonardo leaped up and whacked it in the face with one of his swords, which didn't so much as dent the hard exoskeleton. In fact, the giant beetle reached out with its mandibles and crunched his katana in half. Stunned, Leo backed off while the deep vibration and rock falls continued.

"Okay, Mikey," Raph called over the din, while dodging under a spidery leg to avoid a falling bounder, "I'll give ya this… Here's a bug I'm scared a'!"

But it was unlikely that Michelangelo heard him, squealing at a high frequency and amplitude to rival the jinshin-mushi's.

Eventually the rumbling stopped, and when it did, most of the cavern stopped raining debris on them. The three turtles looked up to see their brainy brother tying the beetle's wings together with his rappelling line. He then reached into his pack, taking out a giant daikon radish and a length of bungee cording, which he used to tie the vegetable to his bo.

"I was hoping to save this specimen to take home and clone, but… needs must." Climbing up to the insect's head, he dangled the radish before its beak. "Come on, Mushi, let's go…"

The kaiju gave a compliant little ear-splitting shriek which resonated around the cavern, deafening them all again, and trundled forward after its treat. When it reached the wall, it reached out with its giant armored limbs and easily burrowed through and out into a cave that, judging from the beams of sunlight permeating it, led to the outside. Don dangled the radish before its nose again and rode the beast out until they were clear of the cave mouth, his brothers following on foot. Then he untied the jinshin-mushi's wings, slid off the insect's back, an held out the daikon for the creature's mandibles to begin munching on.

He looked up at his brothers. "What do you think, Leo? Can I keep her?"

Three turtles' heads shook back and forth in unison.

x-x-x-x-x

**a/n: **An entry for the TMNT ABC Halloween Creature Challenge on devianart TMNT-Allstories. I picked J and got the Jinshin-Mushi, or earthquake beetle.

Description from sampsonknight :  
(According to Japanese mythology, Jinshin-Mushi, the earthquake beetle, is responsible for shaking of the earth that occurs so often, particularly in the south. Despite the fact that Jinshin-Mushi is called a beetle, it has a dragon's head spiders legs in a body covered in scales.) Taken from the elemental encyclopedia of magical creatures

Upon doing a little further research, I learned of two forms of Jinshin-Mushi: the little apple-sized beetles, and the Godzilla enemy kaiju, Muto. Couldn't make up my mind which I was going to do this little story on, so it ended up being both! The other thing I ran into while searching was several pics of the OT TMNT figure Panda Khan (posted by one Jinshin-Mushi), so now we've come full circle.


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